


a place where apples have faces too

by okayantigone



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Past Abuse, Perfect Court, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 01:53:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: It was ugly and unfair that Nathan should be allowed to move on from everything, when Neil’s mom still couldn’t make herself take a shower for days sometimes. It shouldn’t be like this. Mary should be the one living it up, seducing young lovers, and having a real life, while Nathan wasted away behind closed doors, too paranoid to show his hateful face outside.His therapist would say he was upset because he’d never really gotten closure with his father, but the only closing Neil wanted from Nathan Wesninski was a closed casket funeral and eulogy to let everyone in attendance know what a piece of shit the man had been in life. He imagined his mother and Ichirou at the funeral. Ex wife. Mistress. All the potential for these things to be funny, but they were happening to him in reality and his bones were on fire with something ugly and foreign. He wanted to lash out meanly and with violence.He wanted his father to apologize. To acknowledge that this was bad. He wanted something from Nathan, but he didn’t know what it was, so he couldn’t phrase it.Also known as the one where Mary and Nathan got divorced earlier on in the books, and Ichirou is Neil's inappropriately young stepfather.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is the much coveted AU from Hell, and I will probably post it in 3-4 parts, idk. I wrote it as part of the AFTG Big Bang, and I am very excited for the beautiful art by kitshunette that accompanies it. 
> 
> It's like this, basically: Mary divorced Nathan, and moved back to England. Neil still goes to play for Edgar Allan every summer, and has every plan of joining their lineup permanently after he graduates (he's also dating Andrew on the down-low shhh). 
> 
> Finding out that Nathan is dating Ichirou, and is extremely serious about it, brings up some issues Neil thought he'd gotten over.

The clock in the hospital waiting room measures the time out in lazy ticks, and Nathan times the taps of his foot against the off-whie tile to it, together with the restless drum of his fingers over his knee. 

Ichirou Moriyama’s teenge angst bullshit had almost gotten itself a nasty headcount. Grabbing five million, a fake passport and taking off to Europe became a viable possibility for his future the moment four silent, and tattooed yakuza men with machine guns stormed the Wesninski stronghold in Baltimore. Nathan had lived on the run from the law, had lived on the streets, but he had never – until then – considered living on the run from Kengo Moriyama to be a possibility. He considered, briefly, calling Mary up to check if there was something to be sorted for him in England, and the three days he spent swiching stolen cars, and ditching dead bodies making a cut for the Mexico border where there would always be work and protection for someone like him in the cartels, was the most stressfull 72 hours of his entire life. 

The information was lacking – Icihrou had done something. Something had happened to Ichirou, and Kengo thought it was him. And when Nathan got the bottom of it, he’d wring the little shit’s neck his own damn self. 

He shoots Ichirou a text from his brand new untapped phone

we need to talk now – n 

and another one. 

i’m not fucking around we need to talk. 

And another. And another. 

what the fuck happened?  
why were there people at my house? 

what the fuck did you do? 

And another. 

they think i did something to you, call me NOW 

what did you do? 

And then. 

call me 

CALL ME 

 

He sits in the hospital, and times his nervous ticks to the measure of the clock, and clings to the cheap carton cup of shitty hospital coffee with grim determination. If Ichirou is okay, he will strangle him with his bare hands. If Ichirou is not okay – 

If Ichirou is not okay, he will need to get in touch with Riko, and soon. 

Because Ichirou tried to kill himself again. The simple truth of it can no longer easily be denied by Kengo Moriyama, or his men. His perfect heir hasn’t been perfect in a very long time, hospital stint, after hospital stint, rehab stay after rehab stay, which by the miracle of Moriyama money have stayed off the news, have racked up the possibility that Riko should take over the empire anyhow. Ichirou’s ruthless business-minded practicality doesn’t stand a chance in the shadow of his deteriorating mental health. 

What else, Kengo had sighed on the phone, can I do for him? I buy him medicine. I pay for his therapy. What else can I do to make him better?

If Nathan had the answers, they all wouldn’t be here. 

Finally, a nurse who looks like she’d like to murder him, informs him that he can go into Ichirou’s private room. 

“I don’t know what all of y’all are involved in,” she informs him politely, in a tone of voice that suits a threat rather more than delivering information. “You must have some serious pull. Because he should be institutionalized.” 

“Right,” says Nathan. In his humble non-professional opinion Angry Nurse is absolutely correct, but there are some things he has no influence over. 

He walks past the security, and into the room, full of flower arrangements and a few Get Well cards from Ichirou’s college friends. 

“What the fuck did you do this time, kid?” 

Ichirou just shakes his head, and looks close to panic.

He claws at his thigh through the sheets. Nathan places his scarred rough hand over Ichirou’s elegant pale one, and grasps it firmly.

“Come on, none of that – “he says. “None of that now.”

Ichirou leans into him, hides his face in his stomach. His hands come to rest on Ichirou’s shoulders awkwardly. He rubs circles there with his thumb. He wonders when things got so fucked up. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry – I’m sorry -I’m sorry he thought you did it. I didn’t think he would. I left a note. sorry I used your knives I –“ 

“Shut up,” Nathan says. “Shut up, don’t talk.” He doesn’t think he can hear it. He doesn’t want to. He thought things were better. He thought - 

Ichirou’s mouth shuts with a click of his jaw. 

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Nathan says. Ichirou is blinking up at him, still somewhat hazy. He looks like he’s lost in a dream. “Do you hear me? Don’t you fucking dare. Nod so I know you understand me.” 

Ichirou’s nod feels like a punch of relief to his gut. 

“Good boy,” Nathan says. Ichirou heaves a breath that isn’t quite a sob. 

“Daddy –“ 

“Shush. It’s okay now. You’re here. You’re fine. You’ll be okay. They’ll discharge you soon, and you’ll go back to DC.” 

He nods. He understands. 

“Ichirou?” 

Another nod. 

“I don’t think you should be returning for your breaks anymore.” 

Ichirou looks like he can’t decide if he should get angry or sad. 

“I might come down to DC to see you sometimes. There’s no point. It’s not good for you. Your father agrees.” 

Kengo hadn’t exactly agreed, but sometimes you just had to present the Lord with a completed action that couldn’t be undone, and say “Well, this happened.” And give him no choice in the situation. Twisting Kengo Moriyma’s arm for the common good had become practically second nature to him over the years. 

“Okay.” 

“Ichirou. Look at me, baby.” 

He can sense Ichirou’s focus on the complicated task of maintaining eye contact.

“I want you to be doing okay.” He says earnestly. “that’s not happening in New York. Do you understand? Nod.” 

“Yes, daddy.” Ichirou mouths softly.

“I can’t protect you, if you’re hurting yourself.” 

yesdaddy sorrydaddy

“The doctors will prescribe you some medication, and you should start taking it. It will make you better. And you won’t be as sad.” 

Like hell. They kept stuffing him full of drugs, and it sure as hell wasn’t helping, was it? 

“Okay, daddy.” Ichirou murmurs. 

“Ichirou?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I will always take care of you. I’ve pledged my life to it. You are my lord.” 

Half-truth. He’d pledged his life to Kengo. Somehow this kid had worked his way in, and demanded servitude, and Nathan had ended up promising him things too.

“Yes, thank you.” 

Nathan isn’t sure if Ichirou is even listening to him anymore. 

Words, he mouths against Nathan’s palm. His lips are impossibly soft. 

“What?” 

“You asked what I did. I carved words. “ 

Jesus. 

“Ichirou-“ 

“It doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry I used your knives. I will be better.” 

Nathan presses his lips in a line. He tries not to look angry, even though he is. He isn’t angry at Ichirou so much as just angry in general, but he’s trying to hear it, he’s trying to understand the why of it. 

“They said you tried to slit your wrists.” 

“I didn’t try.” 

Nathan grips his shoulder harder, digging his fingers into the soft flesh. Stupid, stupid kid thinking he knows better than the adults. 

“If you pull shit like that again, I’m going to finish you off myself, do you understand me, boy?” 

“Yes.” 

“Just let me do my fucking job and take care of you.” He sighs. He doesn’t think he can survive another terrifying bit of this. 

“Yes daddy.” Says Ichirou prettily.

“Good boy.” Nathan sighs. “Come on. It’s fine now. It’s alright now.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art for this fic from the lovely kitshunette: 
> 
> http://kitshunette.tumblr.com/post/163822298557/what-he-says-quietly-are-you-doing-here

Neil gets home from practice later than he expected. He passes by the living room, ducking in to make sure it’s empty, even though he doesn’t have to – he’s missed tea and he knows that. 

He drags his duffel up the stairs distractedly. When he opens the door to his suite, he doesn’t expect to see his mother sitting on the bed, between his packed suitcases. She looks restless and more than a little agitated, running her fingers through her hair, and looking around the room like she expects to get jumped. 

“You’re late,” she says sharply as soon as makes it in. He sets his duffel down with a dull thud on the thick carpet and crosses his arms in front of his chest, ready to be on the defensive before they’ve even said hello. He wishes things weren’t always a knife fight with her, but they didn’t really know how else to be around each other. 

“I had to talk to coach after practice.” 

“You missed tea.”

“I know. I called uncle Stuart. I’m sorry.” 

She sighs like she expects more, but this is the most he’s going to give her right now. He hasn’t done anything wrong.

“Well, I just came to drop off your boarding pass for tomorrow. You have a connecting flight from Newark. And your uncle’s already booked your tickets back. Are you okay to drive to Jersey, or should I tell him to ring up the travel agent and find something else?” 

“Mom, it’s fine,” Neil held up a hand. “I can drive. I’ll be fine.” 

“You know I don’t like this,” Mary said. 

Neil sighed. She’d made her displeasure clear in a number of ways, going as far as to try going over Neil’s head to talk to Stuart. She just didn’t understand how important exy was. How important the Ravens were. If Neil wasn’t playing exy, he might as well be dead. 

“You should be studying for you’re A-levels, this summer,” she continued, picking up from a number of conversations they’d had over the course of the school year, and the summer before it, and the summer before that. 

“Jean can help me with my French. And Kevin and Riko will give me their notes from history tutoring. And Math will just – “ he gestured. That was the least of his concerns. “I’ll be fine,” he repeated, struggling not to sound too exasperated. “It’s not like it matters what grades I get. I’m going to Edgar Allan when I graduate. We’ve talked about this.” 

“Nathaniel,” she began, catching herself at his flinch. “Neil. Listen. I - I know how much you want to play with Kevin and Riko, and all that. But I want you to promise me that you will at least try applying to other universities. Not necessarily in the UK, if you don’t want. But at least try. You know – there’s plenty of other good exy teams in America. You could be a very good fit for USC. And PSU has just opened a new applied mathematics department, where they – “

“I’m going to Edgar Allan and that’s final,” Neil said, sounding more than a little like a sullen teenager throwing a tantrum, and hating himself for it. He didn’t like interrupting his mother. It made him feel too much like his father. He made a conscious effort to hold back, but he was tired of rehashing the same fight they’d had since the divorce. Exy was all Neil had that was his own, wether he was Hatford, or Wesninski or had some other, completely different name, 

Mary looked ready to fight more, but all of his energy had gone out the widow at the thought of having to spend the next two weeks dodging his father in Baltimore. The house was big enough that they were never on the same floor, let alone in the same room, and Neil took all his meals in his room to avoid any possible run-ins in the kitchen. Most of the time, Nathan had sudden and unexpected business out of town that somehow left the house empty. Even so, Neil preferred to be contained, or else, entirely out. He had no particularly feelings towards the house in Baltimore anymore. He’d worked through most of them with the patient soft-spoken child psychiatrist Stuart kept in his pocket. 

Now it was just a house with many rooms, that Neil felt no need to explore. The thought of it just made him very heavy and tired. He felt bad for speaking over Mary, and being cross with her. She’d done her best, and gotten him out of there, and then despite her disapproval, hadn’t done anything to actually keep him from exy. 

“I’ll pick some university brochures,” he said placatingly. “And I’ll call you every day.” 

“Twice.” Mary said raising a hand to wag a finger at him. 

“Okay. Twice a day.” he agreed easily. He could definitely do that much. “Are you sure I won’t be waking you up?” 

Mary shrugged. Her sleep schedule was as irregular as Neil’s. Even if he called her in the middle of the night, she’d probably just be awake reading, or driving aimlessly aroung Birmingham to calm her nerves, or at the shooting range, or doing whatever else it was she did that she never told him about. Neil thought it was only fair to let her mother keep her secrets, considering how little she actually pried into his life. If he let her know where he was, and who he was with, she rarely pushed for more than he wanted to give. Giving each other space, his therapist called it. 

He remembered the first year after they went away, when she only slept in the same bed as him, and kept a gun under the pillow, and never let him out of her sight. He thought of it as the silent year, because it was the year when he didn’t speak at all, his vocal chords still recovering from a near deadly brush with a cleaver. It hadn’t come from his father, though it may as well have, and it had been the last straw for Mary to call Stuart from the Emergency Room. As soon as Neil was well-enough to travel, they got on a plane, and Neil didn’t have to see his father again for the next two years. 

He didn’t remember that part – he’d spent a lot of the time doped up on pain medication. After, he hadn’t spoken. The doctors weren’t sure if he’d lost the ability, or if he didn’t want to, prompting Stuart to buy out a small pediatric psychology clinic to work with him. In the Silent Year, he’d learned sign language, and also French, because his therapist thought it might be good for him to try speaking in a language that wasn’t English. 

Then, the Silent Year was over, and Stuart insisted that Mary and Neil needed to spend time away from each other. He might have sent Mary to a therapist too – Neil doesn’t remember. He remembers the first time he met Kevin and Riko though. 

Stuart had told him this – no promises were made, and no contracts signed, but part of what greased the divorce along was the tentative suggestion that Neil might play for the Ravens eventually. If he wanted to. As if he wouldn’t want to. 

Riko and Kevin were only a couple of years older than him, and Riko was already all sharp edges, and cruel words, and Kevin was already shaping into an arrogant asshole, and Neil hadn’t loved anyone quite as quickly or as fiercely as he did them. Nothing gave him as much pleasure as the opportunity to check them on the floor into breathlessness, and so, arrangements were made that he’d spend the majority of each summer practicing with the Ravens. 

He was already marking the days in his calendar down. Tomorrow’s date, circled in red, winked at him from across the room. 

The fight had gone out of the room, and he moved past Mary to his desk, where she’d left his boarding pass, next to his passport, ID and driver’s license. 

“So,” she said, a little awkwardly, cleared her throat, raised her arms, unsure what to do with herself, and put them back down. “Are you… are you excited to see Andrew, then?”

Neil let himself smile as he put his documents away in his laptop bag. Just the mention of Andrew’s name was enough to make him happier than anything. He was one of the most unpleasant, and unwelcoming additions to the Ravens line-up. In a team made up of dangerous violent people, he managed to make even Riko look small, and that wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish. Neil had bet Kevin his car that he’d manage to get something genuine out of Andrew by the end of summer practices. He hadn’t expect that said genuine thing would end up being a relationship, but he presented Kevin with the keys to the beemer anyway. 

“Yeah. I really am.” 

Mary had been wary of Andrew at first. A boy with his violent history – and an older boy at that – wasn’t her ideal choice for someone Neil should fancy. At the same time, he’d put a stop to the unnecessarily awkward and uncalled for morning ritual of coming into Nathaniel’s room, to see one of his guilty-faced classmates getting dressed, apologetic and full of excuses like they really thought she was born yesterday. On the other hand, Neil had picked up smoking as a more permanent habit from him. And he’d started driving a lot more recklessly, because the boy was into drag racing. 

But he also made Neil’s entire face light up so brilliantly whenever his name came up in conversation, she’d started bringing him up just to see her son smile.   
She’d suggested that Andrew come to Birmingham for a week, but apparently he was scared of heights so much so, that he avoided flying at all costs.

“He’s got a cousin in Germany that he won’t even visit because he hates planes, Mom,” Neil had said. Mary had elected to believe him only after getting Stuart to dig as much information on the kid as possible. Neil had found the file in his uncle’s desk and given her such an ugly look, but she didn’t regret it for a moment. Better safe, and she was entirely not sorry. Of course she had to let Neil make his own mistakes. Her therapist never shut up about the importance of letting Neil have freedom to make his own choices after the childhood he’d had –  
“the childhood he’s had” – that’s what she always said, but Mary couldn’t help but hear “after being abused for years because you were too stupid, too proud, too weak to walk away from a marriage that never should have happened in the first place”. And sure, she could let him make mistakes about some things. Picking up Latin at GCSE for example – as if he had the patience for a dead language – was a mistake she’d been perfectly willing to let him make, and she’d even written a few of his exercises for him so he’d pass, but this other thing – a relationship – that was something different altogether. She felt a certain kind of way, about him picking an apparently volatile, violent man with anger management issues, who’d had endless stints in juvie and rehab, and apparently wielded knives as well as Neil did. She feared that perhaps something latent from Neil’s childhood had reared its ugly head and brought him to seek familiarity, although she feared the same when it came to the questionable relationship he was forming with Riko Moriyama. 

“Andrew is um – Andrew’s not great. He drove up to WVSM to see his brother for a bit, and apparently they had some kind of huge fight, so he got back to Edgar Allan early, and he’s not talking to anyone. Kevin tried to run drills with him, and he aimed all the rebounds at his throat.” 

He sounds thrilled about it. He and Kevin must be in one of the off periods in their friendship, where anything and everything Kevin does pushes Neil to be annoyed with him. 

“But anyway, he called me yesterday and we talked for a bit. He might come pick me up from Baltimore in my – Kevin’s – car, so we can drive together for a bit. I’m excited to see him again.” 

“I’m not sure how I feel about Andrew driving you all the way to West Virginia,” Mary began. “I know you say he’s a good driver, but I think I’ll just feel – better – if I knew you were driving at least half the way.” 

Neil sighed. Not getting annoyed at mom. She’s just worried. It’s okay. 

“We’ll be fine, mom. If we get in a wreck right before the season starts, Riko will actually murder us.” 

Right. Of course. Exy. She wonders if she should worry about Neil’s obsession, but the therapists – both his and hers – had said something about him needing a safe space to vent out aggression. Exy had been the one thing that Neil had loved unconditionally before their move to the UK. It would be cruel to deprive him of it, but a sport that involved violent body checking and frequent fights was the exact opposite of safe, especially when the team he played on was owned by Tetsuji Moriyama. 

As usual after a period of time, their conversation stalled. Mary wasn’t sure if it was her fault, for being awkward and standoffish in the first place, or Nathaniel’s, for being – for all intents and purposes – still just a sullen teenager. 

She wonders sometimes, what would have happened if she hadn’t been furious enough to call Stuart, if she had grabbed Neil and ran at some other time, in some other, less thought out fashion, just her and him against the world. She imagines her boy would smile a lot less in that universe. 

Maybe not being able to have an honest and prolonged conversation without a trained professional in the room is a small price to pay for that. She still sleeps with a gun under her pillow. Meanwhile, Nathaniel gets to do normal teenage boy things like talking about boys and worrying about this year’s European Championship. He hasn’t been explicit, but apparently there’s a sizeable betting pot going on at the Nest between France and Ireland, and all bets are anonymized because well – Kevin and Jean. But Neil is planning on winning his car back from Kevin. Or something. She isn’t sure how these things work, or what bet he lost the car in in the first place. 

Stuart’s lawyers had set them both up well enough that these kinds of things weren’t something to worry about. Even though Mary preferred – for safety’s sake – that they both live in the family home just outside Birmingham, she owned property under her own name, and executed legal duties over property Neil would own when he was of age. As well as a trust fund, and more money than she’d know what to do with – but her son, who was friends with Riko Moriyama clearly knew what to spend on – well. 

“For goodness’ sake, Mary, the kid bought a car, not a bag of cocaine,” Stuart had said, “Let him have his fun. You’re the one who pushed him to get a driver’s license.” 

Sometimes, she was grateful Stuart didn’t have any children of his own. One of him was plenty to have to deal with. 

“Well,” she said, when she felt she’d hovered too long. Nathaniel was moving soundlessly around the room, checking and rechecking his luggage, and his equipment. “I’ll let you finish packing then – shall I?” 

Neil shrugged. “You can stay here,”he said lightly. His back was to her. “I don’t mind. I’m almost done anyway. We can watch a movie or something before we get to dinner.” 

“Alright. But no action flicks.” 

There was something about the particular kind of film that usually appealed to Neil – fast car chases, explosions in the background, Matt Damon in a tight black shirt and shoulder holster – that just set her stomach on edge. 

Neil shrugged again, good naturedly. “Do you want to see Notting Hill again?” 

That was fine by her. He pulled the DVD out from his collection and put it in the player. That had been another argument between her and Stuart. Neil having a TV and computer in his room – it wasn’t good. At least she thought – it shouldn’t be. There was something about children and technology in the same room that was bad, and to be avoided, or so the magazines on parenting told her, but what the hell did she even know about parenting. Nathaniel, at the time still tentative about speaking, her signed to her that TV –No TV was okay either way. 

He’d been so upset that she was having an argument with Stuart, she’d ended up saying fine, let him have one, just to make the pit of guilt in her stomach ache less. Stuart’s general policy on nephew rearing was “if he wants it, let him have some”, and that included most things, except for drugs, which Neil had thankfully never shown interest in. It unfortunately also included smoking, but that was a lost battle anyway. 

She was a smoker too – it just wasn’t fair of her to expect he wouldn’t pick at least one of her bad habits along the way. And he claimed it made his throat ache less. 

Neil scooted next to her on the bed, and rested his head on his shoulder. 

“I’m gonna miss you mom,” he murmured, just as Hugh Grant came on screen. 

“I’ll miss you too,” she said quietly, “You’ll call me when you’re in Newark, right? And then when you get to Baltimore.” 

“Yes, mom. Twice a day – once in the morning, once in the afternoon.”

“Good boy,” she kissed the top of his head, and focused her attention on the movie. She didn’t consider herself a romcom kind of woman. If anything, she preferred the kind of sad, long and drawn out scenes of contemporary European cinema, but British pride demanded a certain level of investment in anything produced by Richard Curtis, and Neil didn’t seem to mind. Just the other week she’d caught him crying at Love Actually in bed, alone, at 3 in the morning, eating cold baked beans straight out of the can. That might have been around the time he’d heard that Andrew was having a rough time with his brother. 

Stuart was unfashionably late for dinner. Mary was perfectly alright with starting without him, but Neil had insisted that they wait, while nibbling on a barely unfrozen bagel. 

“I don’t understand why you’re eating this when we have a perfectly adequate chef,” Mary said, gesturing. 

Neil shrugged.

“It’s not that I mind Rosie’s cooking. But sometimes you just feel like having a bagel, you know?” 

No. She did not know. She stabbed a fork in her salmon. “Your uncle always skips the entrees anyway.” 

Neil rolled his eyes, but not like he was judging her. 

Stuart came in when she was just pushing aside the last bits of rucola, looking tired, but otherwise in a good mood. He kissed her on the nose instead of the cheek, distractedly, ruffled Neil’s hair and took his seat at the table. 

“Alles good?” 

“Ja,” said Neil, mouth full of the last bit of his bagel, which he’d shoved in his mouth when he heard his uncle come in. Stuart took it as a personal offence if Rosie’s cooking was underappreciated it. After their father passed, she’d been the first hire he’d made on his own. 

She cleared her throat. Stuart liked to keep Neil on his toes, starting conversations in a different language, aiming to build what he called “functional fluency” – so that wherever Neil ended up, he’d be able to speak comfortably and be understood. Mary drew the line with them at Dutch. “He can learn new languahges when he has A* on the ones he already speaks.” 

Of course, then, Nathaniel had passed the DELF and gleefully informed her he was signing up for private tutoring in Italian. She would have been angry, if it wasn’t an oddly flattering reflection of what she’d been like at that age. 

“Is everything in order for tomorrow then?” 

“Yes, uncle. The car will pick me up for the airport at half six.”

“Good, good. And have you ah – emailed your itinerary – “

“To Lola, yes. I have.” 

With the people who worked for him, Stuart employed the general rule of British politesse, and required the same of Neil. Getting a small airport gift fot Stuart’s assistant, and the travel agent who booked his tickets, making small talk with the driver, ending all his emails with a heartfelt “Best Regards”. The rule did not extend to people directly under his father’s employ. Lola got an unlabeled attachment with his booking reference, and arrival time, the dates for his car rental, and the dates of his return flight. Wether or not she filtered it through and communicated it to his father was another question. Neil had very particular opinions about things he’d eventually like to do to Lola. They all involved a cleaver, an anatomy textbook, and an unmarked construction site that had been sitting abandoned off the side of the road between where he commuted from Baltimore to the nearest out of town exy stadium. 

It was a wordless understanding between him and Riko, that eventually those things would happen, and Riko would throw his and his uncle’s weight behind Neil if any questions rose about it. Wordless, because Neil hadn’t spoken about it, just signed in the semi-darkness of their room at Edgar Allan, with the slash in his throat still a fresh scar. Riko had asked to touch it, his pale hand cold and light on Neil’s throat. One of these days Lola was going to die. 

“Well, it seems like me and your mother have very little to do then,” Stuart said with good humour. “You should leave the odd trainer out of place, just so we’d have something to tell you off for, eh?” 

“Mom tells me off plenty,” Neil said off handedly, and moved his hand so the maid could place the soup in front of him. 

“Oh, Mary! Say you haven’t? What has Nathaniel even done that requires telling off?” 

“Well, he’s spending the summer before his A-levels in America, for starters,” Mary said, but she didn’t sound fighting ready anymore. Just chagrined. 

Stuart laughed. 

“I don’t see why you’re worried. Neil is brilliant at academics, and even if he wasn’t – I own half the admissions boards in Northern universities.” 

Neil hid his smile with his spoon. He knew that already. Stuart had tried to talk to him – quietly and aside – about how much Mary worried. How it would really put her mind at ease if Neil considered some universities closer to home, some that weren’t Edgar Allan. If Neil was worried about exams, it would be okay – Stuart would take care of it – he knew Neil didn’t need it, but it was an option. Neil thanked him and declined, and then Stuart drove him to the shooting range, and they emptied clips into people-shaped targets until Neil wasn’t feeling cross anymore. 

After dinner, he went to bed early, but stayed up texting the Perfect Court message chain until it was time to go. 

He’d done the journey to America enough times that he could completely tune out during it. He was thrumming with nervous energy, but it was the kind   
of energy that left him short of breath and exhausted at the same time.   
The last time he’d been in the same room was Nathan was almost a full year ago, and his father had seen him, and promptly turned around and left, saying nothing. 

He sometimes sent emails, but they were short, and usually questions about Neil’s banking and social security information that required updating for the purposes of tax deductible monetary gifts. Neil didn’t tell Mary about them. He considered those his emergency accounts. Emergency for what – he wasn’t sure, but emergencies could always happen. 

Two years ago around Christmas, something had happened, and Kevin had ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning. Neil drained one of the accounts from his father to cover up the medical bill and keep everything hushed from the press, the other Ravens, even the Master. He hadn’t been there in person, but just imagining Kevin in hospital was enough to have him pacing with anxiety in his study room, trying not to give anything away to his mother and Stuart. She’d known of course, and he’d half-lied – “I got some money from Dad, and an email.” 

The contents of his account had gotten restored almost the day after, like Nathan had known where they went. Neil resented that he resembled his father in any way, but it was getting harder and harder not to admit that in his own fashion, he was also in the business of keeping Moriyama messes contained. 

With his own car held captive by Kevin in Edgar Allan, he’d rented himself something shinier and newer and faster, mostly because he knew the expression Andrew would make at it. Andrew liked cars. He liked them fast and shiny. Neil didn’t particularly care. When he bought a car, he tended to follow Stuart’s advice – it has to look expensive, but it also has to look classy. You don’t show up to a meeting in a Porsche. Everyone at the meeting can buy a Porsche. If you only have a Porsche, you show up in a taxi. 

“And if you don’t only have a Porsche?” Neil had asked.

“Then you arrive in a Jaguar.” 

Neil had taken the advice to heart, passed his driving exam, and gotten a Jaguar. 

In America, he’d put his money behind a sleek BMW sports model. But with a rental – well. He didn’t have any class to prove. The Aventador was a bright canary yellow, compact as a lemon drop. Neil couldn’t wait to drive it. 

He couldn’t wait to see Andrew’s face when he saw it. He couldn’t wait to see Andrew’s face period. Their last few conversations had been short and clipped, and Andrew clearly wasn’t in the mood, which is what worried Neil the most. Left to his own devices like this, Andrew tended to spiral into a dark hole that was almost impossible to pull him out of. The best he could do from all the way across the ocean was make sure he kept his therapy appointments. 

His anxiety had taken over his brain so much so, he almost missed the turn for the driveway to the house. He slammed on the brakes and turned the car around, in a reckless move that would have gotten Mary shouting if she’d been in the car with him. 

There was an unfamiliar car in the driveway, parked next to his father’s Bentley. It was flashy in a way that made Neil assume Nathan hadn’t bought it, and he wondered if someone had broken the sacred rule of “Don’t show up in a meeting in a flashy car everyone else can afford”. 

The house looked like there’d been work done to it. He wondered if his father had felt the need to remodel, but ultimately, didn’t care enough to think too much about it. Even the Butcher of Baltimore had to occupy himself with pointless expensive projects every once in a while, when he wasn’t cutting people up. Maybe it had been a slow season. 

Neil put it out of his mind, as he walked to the door. He usually let himself in through the kitchen side door that the housekeeper used, where the security combination lock rarely got changed. 

The kitchen was fitted with a new set of cupboards, and something was different about the kitchen island, but Neil hadn’t paid enough attention to the old one to be sure exactly what. The French windows that opened into the backyard in the living room were definitely different , and Neil was pretty sure, were also three inches thicker. 

The house around him was entirely quiet. If anyone was home, they were probably in the study. He made his way to his room, which was in the opposite wing of the house, taking up Mary’s old suite, and threw his bags down on the floor. He didn’t want to unpack fully – he’d jus about get his stuff settled, and then have to pack it again. 

He looked around the room. The remodeling hadn’t touched it, and he was somewhat pleased about that. Change never sat well with him. 

He called his mother, then Riko. 

“I’m putting you on speaker,” Riko warned. 

“That’s fine. Who’s with you?” 

“Kevin, Jean. Lydia.” 

“Lydia’s back early. Why?” 

Lydia Shetfield’s voice came filtered through the phone. “The war at home was getting a bit much. Ugly divorce and all that. My mom used my weighed stick on all the fine china, so I packed my shit and came home early.” 

Most of the Ravens took off for one or two weeks over summer, but there was also a fair number of them tho for whatever reasons stayed back late or returned to the Nest early. 

“Has anyone else started coming back yet?” he asked. He was still waiting for a semi-empty locker room, few witnesses and a chance to punch David Golbert’s smile right off his face, over a few comments he’d made, thinking Neil couldn’t hear him. 

“Well Andrew is – “ Jean started saying, but Riko shushed him. 

“Andrew is what?” Neil asked. Riko groaned. 

“What?” Neil repeated more forcefully. 

“He’s not uh – not exactly in a good place right now, Neil,” Kevin said. 

“He got in a fight with Kevin,” Riko clarified. 

“Chocked Kevin,” Jean amended. 

“Well, that doesn’t seem out of the ordinary,” Neil said. “We all want to choke Kevin.” 

Lydia giggled.   
Nathaniel could imagine her drifting in and out of the room, folding her clothes, straightening out her coursework on her desk, and only half-heartedly eavesdropping. 

“Well, normally I’d agree,” Riko began, and Kevin made a wounded noise beside him, which he ignored, “But I think it could have gotten very bad if me and Jean hadn’t been there.” 

“How very bad?” Neil asked cautiously. 

“Kevin might still have bruises when you get back, bad,” Jean said tentatively. 

“Jesus. What the hell did you say to him, Kevin?” 

“Kevin doesn’t remember,” Riko said, “He was off his ass.” 

“Kevin!” Neil tried not to sound like an angry mother and failed. “In the middle of summer? Why?” 

He could hear Kevin shrugging, and felt like slapping his own mouth. Kevin’s mom had died in the middle of summer. 

“I’ll try to talk to him,” Neil promised. 

He and Andrew had been texting back and forth the last coupel of days, but Andrew wasn’t in the mood for a full blown phone call, so Neil let it be. 

“How’s doing the time treating you?” Riko asked, changing the subject. 

“So-so. I’ve just got here. I’m signing up for afternoon swimming sessions in the Japanese hotel. I’ll be going on runs in the morning, and in between those probably hitting the hotel gym, or driving.” 

“You might as well have booked a suite,” Riko said, “What’s the name of the hotel, let me check if it’s property.” 

“Riko, I have my own money. It’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“Whatever you say,” Riko sounded deeply unconvinced. “If I still had to live in my uncle’s house I wouldn’t be fine.” 

Neil didn’t like the line of questioning. “You do still live in your uncle’s house,” he said coldly. “I’m going to bed.” He hung up before he could feel bad enough to apologize. 

 

What happened to Kevin and Riko behind closed doors in the Master’s living quarters was something Neil had only learned by the shape of their bruises, and the trajectory of their synchronized, almost well-disguised flinches. The edges of Riko’s smile hadn’t been so sharp when Neil first met him. Kevin hadn’t been quite so adept at taking a punch. 

Jean had asked about it, the first terrible summer when the Master acquired him, and Neil had told him that it was best he stop asking now. In the face of being questioned, Riko lashed out violently and uncontrollably. Kevin did a good enough job of steadying him. He managed to work most of if off on the court. Neil struggled to imagine what RIko might have turned into if he and Kevin had been something less than friends, if they hadn’t clung to each other quite so fiercely. 

A sharper, more ruthless Riko perhaps. Someone more easily monstrous and unhinged. Riko was barely holding it together now, but when he exploded it was usually contained inwards. 

Neil imagined sometimes a version of him that drops his raised hand to Kevin or Jean, instead of letting flop weakly at his side with a choked apology, a broken string of please don’t let me be like him, please, please, please. 

As it stood, this is the Riko who’d been able to persuade Andrew to join the Ravens lineup, where Kevin’s tactic had failed. Kevin hadn’t heard what exactly Riko had said, but apparently it had been enough to convince him to take the EA offer over PSU’s, and then Neil had met him, and then. And then. 

What really grinded on his nerves was that Riko only half-meant what he was saying. Riko loved Nathan. Nathan was filling all kinds of empty spaces in his life where father figures went, and Neil wasn’t ready to hear or accept it. It wasn’t fair that Riko was getting things from Nathan Neil had only dreamed of. Things he thought he might be getting from Stuart, if he could work out what the hell a solid male role model was meant to act like. 

He texts Andrew and falls asleep before his reply. 

He spends the next few days doing exactly what he’d told Riko he would be doing. He goes out in the morning, drinks coffee in the Japenese hotel for two hours at least, while leafing through international press, calls his uncle, calls his mom, goes to swim laps, then goes back to the house to do school work, then drives to gym in the evening. He knows he’s too wiry for a backliner. It’s another place where her mother’s genetics had failed him, the other one being height. For a while he’d been the tallest – taller than Kevin, and Riko, and Jean, but then puberty hit with growth spurts, and Riko gained that one sacred extra inch to hold over his head, while Kevin attained a perfectly feasible height for a normal human man, and Jean did some kind of parody move on Jack’s magical beans, and shot well into the “above 6”2” category. Minimal consolation: at five foot flat, Andrew had to lean up if he wanted to kiss Neil, although he usually preferred to drag him down by his jersey, which Neil was more than okay with. 

He wasn’t sure what he and Andrew were to each other. Hooking up with teammates was part of the job description of being a Raven. Lydia had gotten with almost every male player on the lineup since her first year. Riko shared Kevin with Thea. Or maybe Thea shared Kevin with Riko – Kevin was not particularly forthcoming with details on that one. Jenking and Engle were a study in relationship drama, and regularly took out their frustrations off with other members of the team when their relationship hit a stall. 

Neil wasn’t new to casual. He’d done casual his entire time in school. He didn’t have the emotional energy to be invested in a full relationship. He didn’t want to be seen naked. He wanted to kiss, and be kissed, and fine, yes – maybe some fooling around. Room full dark. His t-shirt stays on. But that had been in school, and yes – he’d mostly been experimenting, and that had been clearly communicated on both ends. 

Now though – with Andrew – there was an implied commitment. Andrew wasn’t kissing anyone but Neil. Neil wasn’t being kissed by anyone but Andrew. But Andrew insisted that there was nothing between them. Neil didn’t feel maligned by it, so much as confused. For someone who claimed not to care about him, Andrew sure loved to send conflicting signals of his level of emotional investment in Neil’s life. His anxiety would ease as soon as he saw the other boy, as soon as they snuck off, to smoke on the fire escape, and maybe talk, or rather Neil talk and Andrew listen. 

For the time being that isn’t happening. Andrew’s voice doesn’t come through in texts like it does in real life. Neil’s restless, and agitated. He lays in bed and stares at the ceiling. The house continues to be quiet. 

His father has either downsized staff, or the hired personnel is actively avoiding Neil, and he doesn’t care enough to find out which. The Bentley promptly disappears from the driveway in the mornings, so he must be getting around town, which Neil also doesn’t care about. 

He feels agitated and restless, and he can’t figure out why. He hates these moods, which remind him too much of his father, stalking through the house, and spoiling for a fight, for a reason to ignite the molotv of bottled rage that is his heart. 

When he can’t bear it anymore, he swings his legs off the bed. He throws a pair of jeans on, but doesn’t change out of Jean’s old jersey that he’d stolen to sleep in last year. He grabs his phone and car keys off the desk and heads downstairs. He isn’t sure if he’d going to get a snack and go for a drive, or just get a snack, or just go for a drive. He’ll make his mind up when he gets to the kitchen. Maybe he’ll grab an apple on the way out and eat it in the car, and throw the core out the window as he speeds off. He remembers Nathan carving little faces in the apples for him. That must have been when he was very young. 

For some reason the fridge is currently stocked with a number of foods Neil does not remember being there in his previous summers. He can only hope the dietary change signifies a change in health. He’s tempted to look up the kind of terminal illnesses that require fine artisanal cheeses. 

He stops the thought dead in its tracks, because he can hear someone moving in the kitchen. It could be his father. Or one of the bodyguards. Or one of the servants. But the kitchen is also the room you go in through the back door. He silently pulls a knife out of the block by the door. There’s a reason the kitchen is laid out so you can grab one on the way in from the house. He holds it loosely, and steps in. Only one of the overhead lights is on. 

There’s a man facing the granite cooking counter, back to the entry, wearing what Neil can only assume is one of his father’s button-downs, which is too big on him. 

He makes a sound, half-anoyance, half-relief. Maybe his father might have the decency not to have a rentboy around when Neil is staying over. Two weeks without getting any won’t kill him. Unfortunately. 

The noise startles the man into turning around, and Neil immediately takes his throught about the rentboy back. He’s looking into Riko’s face, only a few years older, and without the distinct tattoo. 

“What,” he says quietly, “Are you doing here?” 

Ichirou Moriyama regards him impassively, and blinks slowly. 

“I am. So sorry,” he says finally. He sounds uncomfortable, which Neil can absolutely understand, given the circumstances. “You must be Nathaniel. Your father mentioned you would be staying at the house for a while, but he didn’t tell me exactly when and I didn’t think you were here yet. Well.” He made a an expression that indicated someone would have to pay for that. 

“I am Ichirou Moriyama.” 

“I know who you are.” Neil said dumbly. He was feeling combative. He didn’t like getting surprises in his own kitchen. Well. In his father’s kitchen, but right now, even this house, with all his childhood ghosts, was making him feel territorial. 

Ichirou looked pained and unhappy, but not like he was angry. 

“Your father did not… mention that I’d be staying here?” 

No. And the question made Neil wonder if Ichirou assumed Neil and Nathan were on speaking terms, but the answer to that was also no. 

“I was just in the process of making tea. Can I interest you in a mug?” 

Neil was on the fence. Ichirou spoke softly, and with the kind of exaggerated slowness that comes with drunkenness, drugs or bone deep exhaustion. 

Ichirou pulls an mug out of the cupboard anyway, taking Neil’s silence for agreement, and for some reason that pisses him off even more. 

“Babe you’re taking a while, is everything okay?” 

Neil hadn’t been in the same room as his father in almost two years. 

“Everything is fine,” Ichirou said distractedly, pouring hot water over the leaves. He, like Riko, had avoided using the electric kettle, preferring to boil the water on the hob instead. “I just ran into Nathaniel here. Or well. He ran into me.” 

He turned around to face them both, slender hands wrapped around the delicate white china. 

“You did not tell me he had already arrived.” Some of the tired quality was gone from his voice, so the words came out almost sharp and accusing. 

“Well,” said Nathan, in a tone that indicated he was ready to dismiss the situation before it could arise, but Ichirou had spent his whole life talking older men who didn’t like being talked over, and he wasn’t about to let this drop. 

“And apparently, you’ve neglected to inform him that I am staying here as well.” 

“You weren’t feeling so well. I didn’t want you to feel obliged,” Nathan said. If he were anyone else, Neil would assume he was making excuses, but he was the Butcher of Baltimore. Ichirou did not look entirely placated. 

“Well, we’ve made introductions now,” he said. “I would have preferred that the situation didn’t arise quite so awkwardly.” 

He sifted the leaves out of the tea, and placed the mug in front of Nathaniel. Something a lot like fury was coursing through Neil’s veins. 

“Well we aren’t quite playground friends yet,” he ground out. “How old are you?” 

Ichirou didn’t look any more or less affronted by the question than he was by the entire encounter. 

“I will be just about twenty three in September. How old are you, Nathaniel? My uncle tells me you are set to graduate high school this year.” 

“Seventeen,” Neil ground out. He imagined, if this were any other situation, if his father were any other man, that this would be the part where they would have a talk. “How long has – “ he didn’t even know what to say, “this whole business – “ he waved his hand at the empty space between Nathan and Ichirou, “been going on?” 

“A little after I started college,” Ichirou said, and hid his face behind his mug. Nathan looked torn between telling Neil to shut up, and avoiding showing his tempter in front of Ichirou. Neil felt ugly and self-destructive, and he wanted to push. 

“Oh, that’s interesting,” he said. There was something in his stomach. A firebird hatching from a golden egg of pure hot fury, unfurling its ember wings. “See, in England, college is what we call the last two years of high school – what I’m doing now. But I guess for you that means university. Isn’t that interesting. You started seeing my father about the same time I started my GCSE’s.” 

Ichirou’s grip on the hot cup tightened, his knuckles turning the same off-white at the porcelain. He turned his face to Nathan, giving him a silent look that communicated a very clear message “this is all your fault”, as if he thought that Neil would have been less combative if he’d known the news. It would have only given him a longer time to sharpen the best tool in his arsenal. His words. 

He reached self consciously to rub the barely visible scar on his throat, and smiled. 

“That’s enough,” Nathan said, before he could speak again. 

Neil didn’t quite agree. “I’m just saying,” he raised his hands, palms up. “It’s interesting. Ichirou is - what – five years older than me? You should have introduced us. We could be friends.” 

As if he would ever befriend Ichirou Moriyama. His allegiances in the bloody mess of the Moriyama family were laid out the other way. First would always come Riko. 

Ichirou looked between Neil and Nathan, like he was seeing them both for the first time. Possibly it was occurring to him just now exactly how big their age gap was. Possibly, he was registering Neil’s resemblance to his father. Or maybe he was working himself up to feeling just a little bit insulted. Neil was playing a dangerous game, but like hell was he going to sit down and pretend like things were just fine when his father was right there, having done the things he did. 

He owed it to his mom. 

“I said that’s enough,” Nathan repeated. “Go to bed, kid.” 

“Are you talking to me, or your barely legal boyfriend?” 

Hit me, Neil thought. Go on, and hit me, and let’s see the stuff this relationship is really made of. It would go one of two ways. Nathan would smack Neil for the insolence, and Ichirou would bolt on the spot, or Nathan would smack Neil for the insolence and Ichirou wouldn’t react. 

Neil only won if it went one way. 

It went the third way instead. His father didn’t do anything. 

Ichirou took a sip of tea, scalded himself, and didn’t flinch. “He actually calls me baby,” he said quietly, smoothly. “I’m going back up.” 

He left. Nathan followed without a backwards glance to Neil. 

With a strangled, furious noise, he threw the mug into the wall, and let it shatter, and then picked up the mop from the cleaner’s cupboard to take care of it. The house staff hadn’t done anything to him, to deserve having to clean up an uncalled for mess. 

He was shaking with fury. He wanted to call Andrew. He picked up his phone, and listened to dialtone, and gave up. Andrew was probably trying to sleep. He called Riko instead. 

“You won’t believe,” he began, before Riko had even gotten a greeting out, “What is happening in my house.” 

“A live maiming?” Riko hazarded. He sounded absent-minded, in a way that suggested he was doing other things at present, probably going through old game tapes, or something that Neil would normally care to hear about. 

“My father,” Neil began. He heard Riko’s sharp intake of breath. “Is seeing someone.” 

Riko let the air out. “So?” 

Neil debated with himself. He could tell Riko. Or he could not. Not telling Riko was the worst kind of betrayal he could imagine. 

“It’s Ichirou.” 

The line went dead. 

Neil sighed. He tossed the last of the mug shards in the bin, and walked out, slamming the door as hard as he could, and hoping it disturbed someone’s sleep. 

When Jean called, he picked upimmediately, put him speaker and tossed his phone in the passenger seat so he wouldn’t be tempted to hang up.

“What did you just tell Riko? He is very, very upset. He has locked himself in the bathroom and Kevin and I are worried?” 

The cadence of his thickly accented voice eased the screech of the firebird in his stomach. 

“I walked in on Ichirou Moriyama in my kitchen, wearing my father’s shirt, and a lot of hickeys.” 

He phrased it as crassly as possible, but it didn’t matter what words he put to it. There was a chasm opened, somewhere between the bottom of his heart, and the pit of his stomach, and it was swallowing up everything Neil had not to cry. He imagined telling his mom. 

His therapist would say he was upset because he’d never really gotten closure with his father, but the only closing Neil wanted from Nathan Wesninski was a closed casket funeral and eulogy to let everyone in attendance know what a piece of shit the man had been in life. He imagined his mother and Ichirou at the funeral. Ex wife. Mistress. All the potential for these things to be funny, but they were happening to him in reality and all he felt was horribly, horribly heavy. 

He got back to the house in the morning, and his father’s car wasn’t there. He climbed up to his room, locked the door, and went to sleep with his clothes on. 

In his dream, he and Mary were driving across the country in a beat up car with peeling paint, and she was telling him to run, run, run, and the air smelled like blood and ashes. In the dream, he was on an empty beach, staring into a bonfire, and he was trying to remember if he’d ever been this afraid or alone in his life, and then he woke up in a cold sweat, with the light of day coming in through a crack in the curtains. 

“I’m awake,” he told no one in particular, and ran his hand over the covers to find his phone. He grasped at the blankets and sheets until he got a hold of it, and held it firmly in his hand, debating until finally turning the screen on. He had missed calls from Riko, and Kevin, and Jean, and Andrew and felt not at all like talking to any of them. 

There was a part of him – not small enough to be ignored – that demanded he call Riko and apologize, but Neil deemed it also not big enough to listen to. He had missed calls from his mom too, but calling her right now made him feel like breathing fire, and since that was an anatomycal impossibility, it meant he’d just end up shouting at her, which was also an impossibility – a moral, and ethical one, so he just texted her that he was fine. 

He felt anything but. His bones were on fire with something ugly and foreign. He wanted to lash out meanly and with violence. It was not entirely a foreign impulse. He wanted to spend the day slamming his fists into one of the punching bags at the gym, he wanted to run on the threadmill until his legs gave out. He wanted to arm himself, and go in the bad part of town, and wait. He wanted – 

He wanted his father to apologize. To acknowledge that this was bad. He wanted something from Nathan, but he didn’t know what it was, so he couldn’t phrase it. 

Closure was a fancy word for having it all out, but it was hard to have a proper screaming match with someone, when you couldn’t raise your voice properly, and his throat couldn’t really carry everything he wanted to spew out. 

There was an expression, that he’d retained from his dim understanding of Polish as a child, that implied you were breathing fire, when you were speaking in anger – “fire and brimstone”, as it were. Neil wanted to bring the heat of his righteous anger down on someone, stalking through the house with his hands in his pockets. 

If he saw Lola, right now, he’d shove her down the stairs without a second thought, and let Riko deal with the fallout however he saw fit. Then again, he wasn’t sure if he was Riko’s favorite person in the world right now. 

He wanted. Something. 

He tried to steady his breath by the time he went into the kitchen. A nice cuppa would just about steady him, and then he could go have coffee in the Japenese hotel, and swim this red hot fury out and – 

Hell no. 

Ichirou Moriyama, attired as he’d been the night before, was standing over the stove, and something smelled very good to Neil, but he refused to acknowledge it. 

“Good morning Nathaniel, I was just about to – “ 

Neil was halfway across the stairs, closing the door of his room with a resounding slam. 

He muffled a scream into his pillow, and then bit into it for good measure. 

It was ugly and unfair that Nathan should be allowed to move on – and move on well – from everything, when Neil’s mom still couldn’t make herself take a shower for days sometimes. It shouldn’t be like this. Mary should be the one living it up, seducing young lovers, and having a real life, while Nathan wasted away behind closed doors, too paranoid to show his hateful face outside. 

Neil refused to acknowledge that if his mother was the one dating someone Neil’s age, he might still react rather unfavorably, because that wasn’t the point. The point was, that Nathan had picked up, and moved on with his life from the place it had briefly paused around the divorce, like nothing happened. 

The point was, that he had a life he could pick up with, because he didn’t have to try to start anything over, didn’t have to build anything new. And Neil hated that, and hated him, and maybe that wasn’t Ichirou Moriyama’s fault, one hundred percent, but if Neil had to be in the same room as him, he might make Riko’s biggest dream come true and accidentally make him the heir to the empire. 

Or not. Maybe he’d just scream. Or the closest approximation thereof that he could afford to do without making his throat bleed. Or maybe cry, which would be the most mortifying option of all, and even though he hadn’t really cried as such in the last many years, there was a first time for everything. 

The knock at his door was the kind of unwelcome interruption that veered his thoughts right back on the path to righteous murder, and taking up vigilantism under the guise of alternative therapy. 

He hears the awkward shuffling of steps outside. 

“May I come in?” 

Ichirou Moriyama’s voice is very soft, and apologetic in a way that should be satisfying to Neil, but only makes him angrier. Even so, he takes great pride in having the moral high ground over Nathan, when it comes to self control and anger, so he says, “Sure.” And it only comes out a little sullen. 

Ichirou is carrying a tray with plates and coffee, and looks as sheepish as the second most dangerous man in America is allowed to look. In the light of day Neil sees him pale and washed out, almost the same pearly grey of the shirt he’s stolen, the bags under his eyes deep and bruise-like, his lips thin, dry and bloodless. He looks like a bad drawing someone made on a discarded napkin, and Neil wonders if it’s Nathan’s effect or something else entirely, and isn’t sure if he cares. 

Ichirou takes a careful seat on the edge of the bed, and puts the tray between them. 

“I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday,” he begins with the tone of voice of someone who definitely knew what they were doing when they went to business school. 

“Yes.” Neil said flatly. 

“I apologize. I am the adult, and I behaved childishly.” Ichirou said. Neil resents the implied condescension, and is tempted to say as much. To say he’s probably seen about as muhc blood in his life as Ichirou has. “It wasn’t fair to expect you to take the news well, and I was also quite taken by surprise. Nathan should have warned me, and you, and he is in the proverbial doghouse because of that.” 

 

Neil takes some satisfaction in that. 

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like to eat, so I’ve made a little of everything. I’m not the best cook, but I do mean it when I say that I am very sorry for my behaviour. And Nathan’s as well, since I doubt he will bother to extend an apology.” 

“Right.” 

Neil eyes the fluffy pancakes, and the waffles (when did they get a waffle maker in the house?), and the jam, and toast, and sliced fruit, and coffee. 

His stomach reminds him he never did get that snack he’d went for last night, but eating the food, and breaking bread with Ichirou seems like capitulation, and he’s not ready for that just yet. 

Ichirou lapses into a pensieve silence, staring at a spot to the right of Neil’s head like he’s very slowly working himself up to speaking, and Neil wonders if he has the patience for it. 

“You play exy at Edgar Allan?” he asks finally, and that seems to take up all the enrgy’s allotted to the conversation, because he goes hollow after that, the way Mary goes hollow when she has to use a kitchen knife to slice bread. 

“Yeah,” says Neil. “I’m going to, starting next year. When I graduate.”

“You’re part of ah – Riko’s perfect court?” Ichirou’s voice has a quality to it – that it’s so full of air. Almost like Neil’s. He wonders if that’s the kind of voice you get when you’ve had a lifetime of knives. 

“Yes.” He says, a little more resolutely. He is proud of that. Of their team, their friendship, their secrets, and their game. He is prouf of being Riko’s number 3, and he wears his tattoo with pride. 

“So you-“ Ichirou focuses on the wall again. His impossibly pale hands are balled into fists in his lap. 

Neil wonders if he should spare him, but he isn’t feeling kindness currently. It’s one of the few languages that still eludes him, that. It was nothint he studied in this house as a child, and he knows more of Polish grammar, than he does the syntax of not-violence. 

“ – know my brother then?” Ichirou finishes. He has given up on even pretending to look at Neil. 

“I do,” Neil says. He doesn’t like how impatient it comes off, but he wishes Ichirou would stop trying to bond, or whatever he is trying to currently do, get on with it, and leave. 

“He is uh – “ Ichirou makes a vague gesture with his hand. “He is … alright then?” 

Neil isn’t entirely sure how to tackle that. How much does Ichirou know about Tetsuji’s quality of child rearing? How much does he know in general? 

“He’s doing alright,” he says cautiously. “He is … the greatest. At exy. As my friend.” 

Riko looks so impossibly relieved, his handsome sallow face sagging into an approximation of a smile. 

“I am very glad to hear that. And I apologize once again for last night. I shouldn’t have startled you, but it was my first time venturing out for a while. I will – let you get on with … your day now.” 

He leaves the room as quietly as he’d come in, like a ghost, that leaves Neil doubting the entire conversation even happened. 

He nibbles on a waffle thoughtfully, and then texts Andrew. Andrew texts him back a frowny face, which could either be sympathy, or a reaction to Neil bothering him, and Neil doesn’t feel like trying to figure out which one. 

He begrudgingly accepts that the waffles are good, and polishes off another one, and all the apple slices. 

He is brimming with questions, and none of them are getting answered, and his frustration mounts while he tries to look at the prospectus courses of universities in England, so he can at least pretend to Mary like he’s taking her advice, and considering his options. 

His frustration only mounts, the more he reads about “academic community”, and it’s not even the universities’ fault that their sites are all shitty and exactly the same as one another.

The tentative knock at his door is a welcome interruption this time. He’d mindlessly clicked around, until he’d inevitably ended up on the Edgar Allan website, staring lovingly at their calculus prospectus. 

He says “Come in” without thinking. Ichirou is fully clothed this time, thankfully. 

“I was wondering if you would be interested in ah – maybe… doing something together?” 

Neil is torn between telling him to go fuck himself (or – cringe- his father), and saying yes out of lack of anything else to do. He wonders if his life was always going to be a bad movie about the mafia, and why it’s ended up being less the Godfather, and more the Sopranos.

Ichirou is rubbing his palms together in a characteristic self-conscious way that makes Neil think of Andrew. He also doesn’t know what to do with his hands more than half the time, always balling them into fists, fidgeting, tapping his fingers and his raquet. It’s such a sudden, random thought, that it almost endears Ichirou to him. 

“Why are you here anyway?” he asks, and wonders when his mouth is going to end up getting him in serious trouble, what with its refusal to comply with his brain’s filter, like whatever got cut along the pathway of his throat that one time, ended up severing that one life-saving connection too. 

“Well,” said Ichirou, diplomatically. “It just so happened that I … briefly but urgently needed to not be in New York this summer. My… new apartment… is having some work done.” 

“And you can’t stay with your father?” Neil presses. 

He has never seen anyone shut down quite so quickly. “No.” 

It would bring sympathy into him, if Ichrou hadn’t chosen to seek refuge from his father in the arms of Neil’s father, who was the least refuge providing man Neil could think of, with maybe the unfortunate exception of Tetsuji Moriyama. Which brought about the case of Riko. 

“How do you feel about sparring?” Neil asked. 

He might have gotten some of his unfair fury out of the way, but he was still excited at the prospect of messing Ichirou’s symmetrical face up. 

“With knives?” 

Neil considered it. He knew what he was doing with a cold weapon. Stuart had insisted he keep up the skills Nathan had instilled in him. Riding a bike, skipping rope, and cutting people open – the three main things he’d picked up in childhood. And exy, but exy was exy. 

“Sure,” he said finally. He lead the way downstairs. Ichirou followed him with a fair smile. 

“Do you think I’ll be in a lot of trouble if I kill you by accident?” Neil asked. 

“Not in as much trouble as I’ll be,” Ichirou assured him. “I’m not technically supposed to be doing anything physical.” 

“Maybe we shouldn’t then – “ 

“There is nothing I’d rather be doing,” Ichirou said. “I haven’t moved from bed in a month. This is healthy.” 

He had a funny definition of healhy. Neil tried to remember everything about his appearance and manner of speech, so he could give Riko the closest approximation.


End file.
